As we look around the world, law exists in every country. But law does not work in the same way in every country. In this course, we will be exploring how law differs as we move across geographic boundaries. Our exploration will include a number of different legal traditions. Not just our own common law system, but also civil law, Islamic law, and Far Eastern law. We will ask how societal expectations of law change depending on its historical legal tradition and whether globalization is having the effect of blurring these distinctions. We will explore the basic legal institutions – such as constitutions, courts, judges, juries, regulations, lawyers – in a variety of contexts. We will ask how the role of lawyers shifts depending on the institutional and cultural contexts. Our focus will be less on the details of the substantive law of any single country and more on the underlying institutional infrastructure.

Learning Outcomes:

The course is designed to prepare you for the legal environments you will confront in other countries as lawyers. We will come to terms with the fact that the common law regime is more the exception than the rule in the world.

You will be exposed to foreign law in English translation. You will be expected to write a research memo that advises a hypothetical client in her options in response to a fact pattern.